When people outside of school ask me what I do for a living, and I tell them I’m a Director of Experiential Education, they often respond by saying, “Oh, you do field trips.” Most people associate “experience” in education with trips, but that’s a limited understanding of the field. While many schools offer trips, not all schools are experiential. Like everything at Emery/Weiner, our experiential education program is different. We invest time and resources into training teachers in experiential pedagogy so they can make their classrooms spaces for embodied learning. Our travel program is different too. From the heights of a mountain peak in West Texas to the low shores of the Dead Sea, we design travel experiences that foster belonging, transform student learning, and promote our mission of personal growth and community-mindedness. Ultimately, we want our students to understand the difference between encounter and engagement, between tourism and travel, between a trip and a journey. Yes, I organize trips. But, I like to think of my job as helping serve the school’s mission and working — along with all our faculty — to facilitate the journey each student here takes through their school years and into life beyond Emery/Weiner.
Casey FlemingDirector of Experiential Education